SANTA CLARA, CA - To accelerate production of its computer-animated feature films and short film content, Pixar Animation Studios is licensing a suite of NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) technologies related to image rendering, the companies announced today.

The multi-year strategic licensing agreement gives Pixar access to NVIDIA's quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC) rendering methods. These methods can make rendering more efficient, especially when powered by GPUs and other massively parallel computing architectures.

"NVIDIA and Pixar have worked together for years to improve workflows in content creation," said Steven Parker, vice president of engineering and CTO of rendering technology at NVIDIA. "With NVIDIA's QMC sampling technology, Pixar can accelerate its creative process while continuing to produce visual imagery and animation of the very highest standard."

"Pixar has long used NVIDIA GPU technology to push the limits of what is possible in animation and the filmmaking process," said Steve May, vice president and CTO at Pixar. "NVIDIA's particular QMC implementation has the potential to enhance rendering functionality and significantly reduce our rendering times."

As part of the agreement, NVIDIA will also contribute ray-tracing technology to Pixar's OpenSubdiv Project, an open-source initiative to promote high-performance subdivision surface evaluation on massively parallel CPU and GPU architectures. This will enable rendering of complex Catmull-Clark subdivision surfaces in animation with unprecedented precision.

About Pixar Animation Studios
Pixar Animation Studios, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, is an Academy Award®-winning film studio with world-renowned technical, creative and production capabilities in the art of computer animation. The Northern California studio has created some of the most successful and beloved animated films of all time, including "Toy Story," "Monsters, Inc.," "Cars," "The Incredibles," "Ratatouille," "WALL-E," "Up," "Toy Story 3" and "Brave." Its movies have won 30 Academy Awards® and have grossed more than $8.7 billion at the worldwide box office to date. "Inside Out," Pixar's fifteenth feature, is currently in theaters worldwide.

Certain statements in this press release including, but not limited to, statements as to: the impact of the licensing of NVIDIA's image rendering technologies to Pixar; and the benefits and impact of NVIDIA's quasi-Monte Carlo rendering methods and ray-tracing technology are forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause results to be materially different than expectations. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include: global economic conditions; our reliance on third parties to manufacture, assemble, package and test our products; the impact of technological development and competition; development of new products and technologies or enhancements to our existing product and technologies; market acceptance of our products or our partners' products; design, manufacturing or software defects; changes in consumer preferences or demands; changes in industry standards and interfaces; unexpected loss of performance of our products or technologies when integrated into systems; as well as other factors detailed from time to time in the reports NVIDIA files with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, including its Form 10-Q for the quarterly period ended April 26, 2015. Copies of reports filed with the SEC are posted on the company's website and are available from NVIDIA without charge. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and speak only as of the date hereof, and, except as required by law, NVIDIA disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances.